Why? Why? Why?: What Women Were Thinking in 1968

Geri Trotta contemplates life's important questions for the January 1968 issue of Bazaar.

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Jan 10, 2014

Harper's Bazaar

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Why? Why? Why do grown women mistake themselves for teenagers and turn up dressed for the evening looking like Trick or Treat when with the same amount of effort-or a little less-they might succeed in looking human, if not chic? Why? Why? Why when it has now become fashionable for magazines to run daring exposes of the Mafia, complete with names, photographs and places, does no one in political office make reference to the problem or spearhead any constructive cleanup campaign? Why? Why? Why does an ordinarily gifted actor like Richard Harris play the film version of Camelot's King Arthur as if he were one of the Seven Dwarfs? Why? Why? Why do we persist in giving cocktail parties-except possibly as a business ploy-when its long since been apparent that plying too many people with too much liquor in too little space and time, then sending them out hungry into the cold street, is too uncivilized to inflict on one's enemies, let alone one's friends? Why? Why? Why do so many people assume that reading the book reviews is equivalent to reading the books, so that it's not unusual to overhear a discussion on a title that quite obviously none of the participants has read? Why? Why? Why is anyone amused by a new breed of untalented, undistinguished bores who are well-known merely for being well-known?

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Why? Why? Why is Vietnam still the undeclared war that everyone talks about but frighteningly few really understand? Is it because we are dull-witted and disinterested, or because our political and military leaders have never intelligently resolved their own ambivalence to present some sort of clearly-defined positions, pro and con, so that the rest of us could make a responsible decision? Why? Why? Why do Americans who ought to know better still affect a pseudo-English accent after they've lived in London more than a month? Why? Why? Why do we take for granted the grim spectacle of young men in the prime of life dying daily in battle but recoil with self-righteous indignation at the mere proposal of euthanasia for the old, incurably diseased, who without it are doomed to an agonizing, lingering death no feeling person would allow a pet animal to suffer? Why? Why? Why do we panic when adolescents challenge our standards, when the real danger to what we value in our way of life would be unquestioning young people who blindly follow in our far-from-foolproof footsteps? Why? Why? Why don't those pessimists who shed their crocodile tears over what they feel is the deplorable state of modern theatre at least admit that we are in the Golden Age of International film-making? Why? Why? Why does the American press, supposedly immune to the cult of royalty, fall at the feet of a dictator's daughter as if she were a combination of Queen Elizabeth I and Proust, and absolutely inundate us with her unperceptive story of an ogre-father that reads rather like Dante's horror tale of Count Ugolino devouring his children, as told by Pollyanna?

Why? Why? Why are we obsessed by superlatives to the point that they become meaningless- a good doctor is described as being the top doctor, a comedy is the funniest comedy and a supermarket quart is a giant quart? Why? Why? Why do we tend to lavish more special attention on mentally retarded children than on exceptionally gifted ones? When a retarded child is helped-as indeed he would be-he may be able to live a normally useful life, but when a gifted child is encouraged to reach his full potential, the whole world often benefits. Why? Why? Why do we believe that in 1968 our relationships are going to be different when the black comedy should be obvious that basically people don't change; they just grow older.